The Voyages of the Mary Lou
by Tarkendar
Summary: It is five years after the Dominion War. The Federation is continuing to rebuild from the devastation brought about by the war. But vigilance is the keyword of the day. Follow the exploits of the Mary Lou as she plows the trade lanes. See what turns up!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Sunlight danced down from the afternoon sky to splash over the few occupants of a sandy stretch of beach, drenching them in the bright yellow sunshine Sol was famous for. There were a couple and their children, playing lazily on the shore amongst the waters of the small lake, obviously enjoying the warmth of the midmorning sun. Further down the sparkling white sand a man lay on his back upon a beach towel bearing the symbol of the UFP, shading his eyes from the sun as he relaxed from a recent swim. Beside him rested a small cooler with a duffel leaning against it.

The kids from down the beach took off at a run, yelling and laughing as they played some game or another. Quade grinned under his arm as he lay there, eyes closed, enjoying the sunshine. It was something that he didn't get to enjoy enough anymore. He wouldn't have been here now except he'd broken one of his own rules and decided to make a little side trip to Earth, sending Walters off in the Mary Lou to pick up the shipment on Mars while he stayed here and got a few things accomplished, including the replacing of some of the crew.

For a moment he frowned, remembering what had happened to the crew he'd had to replace. Then he mentally shrugged. Sometimes things just work out. Sometimes they don't. Life was what it was and there wasn't any sense in getting upset at it. It just wasn't worth it.

The children's' shrieks of delight as they splashed in the waters of the lake caused him to grin yet again as he thought about the upcoming run. He'd been able to find a couple of interesting people to fill out the berths on the Mary Lou. He'd been lucky to find a doctor willing to berth on a civilian ship. Most of the people fresh out of medical school either had debts to pay off, which meant an apprenticeship somewhere, or had accepted the job before they went into school, which meant Starfleet. Finding one who hadn't already been approached while still in school who met his own standards for his crew hadn't been easy.

Or that's what he figured, anyway. He'd been lucky enough to arrive on Earth when the John Hopkins School of Medicine was disgorging their latest batch of baby faced doctors into the unsuspecting world. He'd put an ad on the local 'net about his needs, then waited. It hadn't been a couple of days when he'd filled both the doctor and security chief spots. Not that the second spot wasn't overblown just a bit. There wasn't much need for security when there was only a dozen or so individuals on board. Though whoever he'd picked was in for some interesting training exercises on the ship's weapons systems.

He actually hadn't planned on filling the security spot on this leg of the trip. He hadn't really known why he'd put the word out on the local 'nets about what he needed. It just felt like the right thing to do. And it seemed to have paid off. He wasn't sure how he was going to fit in with the rest of the crew, but that was a problem he'd deal with if or when he had to. His credentials were good and he had felt right during the interview. Now only time would tell.

Speaking of time. He stretched, then stood and began gathering his things. The Mary Lou should be making port very soon. He wanted to be there when she landed. He'd about reached his limits of the time he could spend out among the general populace. These days he felt better on board ship than he had out in the open. Which was another reason he'd come out here, he thought as he finished gathering his things and headed toward the parking lot. He inhaled the fresh, clean air, savoring the natural smells of the land. Now if he could bottle that smell he'd make a fortune on the fringes!

The Mary Lou flew silently through space as she made her way out of Mars orbit and headed toward Earth on impulse power. While they could have made a micro jump and saved themselves several days, it would have put a strain on the engines that wasn't really needed. And that's something that the Captain would have had a problem with. Oh, not with using the resources, if needed. But using them when there wasn't a dire need to. The civilian vessels that made up the backbone of the UFP merchant fleet didn't operate on the same principles as those in Starfleet. There, if something was needed it was requisitioned, and in a day or two it arrived, if it wasn't already on-hand.

That wasn't the way it worked on the civilian fleets. Every cred, every bar of latinum counted toward the bottom line. As for the most part the bottom line was the difference between completing a voyage and not, most in the merchant fleets tended to squeeze every last drop of blood out of a piece of equipment before writing it off, and even then it stuck around in a miscellaneous parts bin in some corner until it could be put to use again.

That was on fleet vessels. The Mary Lou was privately owned, still not all that common an occurrence among the civilized worlds. Most found space travel in one's own ship too expensive an endeavor unless one was willing to make a business of it. So if she could save the captain and owner some creds by taking a bit longer to get to Earth, then so be it.

The woman doing the thinking was Janice Walters, First Officer of the Mary Lou. She was currently seated in the captain's station on the small bridge, surrounded by the muted lights and low murmur of conversation as people went about the business of running a starship. Her eyes flickered to the currently unmanned weapons station. Her eyes dimmed a bit as she thought of the last person to occupy that station. Rodger had been with the ship for a couple of years, and they'd formed a friendship that only living in close quarters for long periods of time could form. Then he'd gone and gotten himself killed in a senseless transporter accident. There hadn't even been anything left to bury.

She glanced around the bridge again, satisfied at what she saw. Only one station was actually manned, and that was Helm Control. All the others were on stand-by, ready to be brought online at need, whether by the crew or by the computer. And the people that would man those stations were good. She'd stack them up against any crew that Starfleet could throw at them. Most of the bridge crew had been around at least six months and had gotten used to how things were done here. It would be interesting fitting in the new personnel. She could do it, though. She'd done it before.

"Ma'am? We're a half hour out."

Janice looked up from her thoughts to look over at the Helm station, where T'Kel was looking back at her. The Vulcan had been with them almost a year now. She had fit smoothly into her role as the main helmsman for the Mary Lou. Janice had noticed the simulation time T'Kel had put in on the simulators, pleased that she'd made the attempt to locate and use them on her own. She made sure that some of the more advanced tactical simulations she'd requisitioned from Starfleet found their way into the Vulcan's hands.

"Very good, T'Kel," she replied. "Contact Earth Approach Control with our papers and destination."

Janice leaned back as T'Kel turned to the communications board to carry out her request. Another hour should find them safely grounded and waiting on the captain.

Pam did one last walk-through of the apartment, checking all the little hideaway places that small objects tended to gravitate for items that she might have missed. As usual she found nothing. Yet she still had to go through the routine.

Making her way back to the front door she looked at the boxes stacked next to it, along with the travel bag next to them. It was hard to believe that seven years of her life were packed in those six little boxes. She looked around the apartment again, realizing how big a step she was about to take. For all of her adult life she'd attended class, then did her internship working at first one hospital and then another, until they all tended to blur together.

It had been worth it, she decided. All the sweat and tears that went into getting her medical degree fell by the wayside as she picked up the last item to be packed; her diploma. She sighed, finding it hard to believe that little document gave her the right to call herself a doctor. She looked at it for a long moment, then packed it away. She'd frame and mount it when she arrived at her new job. Her first job on her own.

When she'd graduated she still hadn't decided what she wanted to do, other than being a doctor. Some of her friends had gone on to join Starfleet, while others took jobs at various ground-based facilities scattered around the UFP. She'd looked at several of those, and had even half convinced herself on a couple of them. None of them had felt exactly right.

Then Captain Samuels had entered her life in the form of a posting on the local jobs 'net. The idea of hanging her shingle on a starship, of all things, hadn't even entered her thoughts until she seen the ad. At first she dismissed it out of hand as something she'd not want to do. She found herself continually pulling it up and reading it over and over, until she finally broke down and called to set up an interview.

That interview had gone well. She and the captain had spent several hours talking. At first he'd asked her about her training and areas of expertise within the medical field, seemingly pleased when she'd told him she'd specialized in both human and xeno-biology. He'd even seemed more pleased to find out that she was single, with no current attachments. He'd seen her quizzical look and grinned. He was pleased because of the nature of his business, which could possibly take them away from Earth for long periods of time. It was better, it seemed to him, for there not to be any entanglements to worry about back home.

At the end of the interview he'd offered her a berth on his ship as chief medical officer, with a starting pay that was both reasonable and acceptable to her. She'd surprised herself by accepting immediately, totally out of character for her. She normally would have agonized for days over the decision before finally making one.

The door buzzed, announcing the arrival of FedEx. She showed them the boxes that she was shipping back to her parents, then, after one final look around, turned away from here old life, heading out to new adventures.

"Excuse me, I require assistance."

The voice carried over the background noise of the busy loading dock. The port of Newport News, once one of the busiest sea ports of the East Coast, had been rebuilt after World War III as part of the DC/Richmond/Newport News mega-complex. Acres and acres of land was filled with hundreds of landing bays, all fed from a central shipping complex. From the air it was a site to see. From the ground it was just confusing.

One of the supervisors looked up from his board to see a young male Vulcan standing a few feet away from him, obviously trying to get his attention while not looking like he was trying to get the supervisor's attention. Stifling a grin he looked over at him.

"Can I help you?" he asked, raising his voice so he could be easily heard.

"I require directions to bay 143. The bay designations appear to be missing in this section of the docks." The Vulcan stood with calm poise, even with the anti-grav personnel locker trailing behind him. Nothing in his demeanor indicated he'd spent the last hour looking for the location himself.

"No problem," the supervisor replied. "They are renumbering the entire area, and if you don't have one of the new maps you're screwed." He pointed off to a series of bays. "The one you want is the third in. You can't miss it. It'll be right in front of you. Shipping out?" he finished conversationally.

Sonak nodded.

"According to control," the man stated as he put down his padd, "there's a ship, the Mary Lou, due in any time for that berth."

Sonak nodded again. "That is my present destination."

"Then you'd best be on your way. Your ship's inbound."

"Thank you for your assistance." Sonak tapped the device on his wrist, causing the locker to rise from the ground to stop at a hover. Without a further glance at the human Sonak began walking toward the waiting bay.

"Vulcans."

The word almost caused Sonak to break out in laughter. Which would not be a good thing, as he was trying to keep a low profile, and a laughing Vulcan would be anything but ordinary. Even though the Romulans had ended up on the same side as the UFP during the Dominion War, not many people considered them "good guys." It was a good thing, in his opinion, to allow people to go on thinking he was a Vulcan. When it finally came out that he was not he would just shrug. It wasn't as if he would deny it if asked directly.

The sound of the comm hail cut through the ambient noise of the Engineering bay, as it was designed to do. "Hey Peter, you awake down there?"

The sound of a chair rolling across the floor was followed by a meaty thump as Peter Jordan slid away from the diagnostics he'd been examining on the workstation to punch the comm on the main console.

"Yeah, I'm here," he replied. "What can I do you for?"

"Is your toy ready for a trip down gravity well?" Janice's voice drifted out of the comm, the humor evident in her voice. "Norfolk's just given us clearance to land. The captain would be proud, too. It's way on the edge of the field."

"Well ain't that just dandy," Peter replied absentmindedly as he ran through several configurations of the console in front of him, his eyes taking in the details on each at a glance. After another moment he stopped.

"All's green across the board," he stated, confident that nothing on this ship would be any problem. "You're clear for atmospheric anytime you want."

"Thanks, Chief." Janice replied, then clicked off. A moment later the all-hands signal piped through the room.

"We're on approach to a landing at Norfolk Station in a couple of minutes. Ground radar shows a good storm between us and our berth. Good news is the ship will get a nice little bath. Bad news, it's going to get a bit bumpy at times. Secure all loose items. Command out."

Peter shot a quick glance around his shop, only finding his coffee cup out on the table across the room. He gathered that in, then pulled up the ship diagnostics on the main wall console. Green glowed everywhere as system after system reported back on the healthy workings of the Mary Lou.

Heh. The Mary Lou. He hadn't gotten the nerve up yet to ask the captain why in the world he called such a ship as this such a silly name as that. Better than that, he still hadn't gotten up the nerve to ask the captain how in the world he'd come to own this ship either.

The Mary Lou was special. She was about a hundred seventy meters long with a width of one hundred thirty four meters, standing at a height of thirty meters. Massing out at almost four hundred thousand metric tons, she supported four decks, with a normal crew of fifty. Unlike a normal civilian ship, the Mary Lou had a very thick skin. The generators for the deflector shields were top of the line, and the hull itself was covered with ablative armor. So even if the shields failed the ship would withstand much more than an adversary would expect before damage became too great to continue.

Not that she'd have a problem dealing her own damage, if she wanted. The ship carried six pulse phasers, for facing forward and two facing the stern. She had three phaser beam emitters, one on the top hull and two on the bottom, along with 3 torpedo tubes, two facing the stern and one facing forward. There were also two other tubes facing forward that could take conventional torpedoes. They also could take another type of load, as was evident from some of the settings on the tubes themselves. However, what other type of load had never come to light. They were light on the loads for the torpedoes, as they only carried a total of twenty photon torpedoes.

Photon torpedoes. What in the hell did the captain need with photon torpedoes? There was enough firepower on this ship to level several major industrial centers without trying! Granted, looking at the ship from the outside none of the weaponry would be evident, as they were invisible until needed. Only then would the weapons become evident.

If the weaponry hadn't been enough to clue him in to what he'd signed on to support, looking at the engines had. There was only one class of ship that had the warp engines mounted inside the hull. He hadn't realized that any had been let out into civilian hands. He'd been skeptical of the berth until he'd run the Mary Lou through the registry, only to have her come up totally clean. Her ownership papers designated one Quade Samuels as rightful owner of all shares in the ship.

Oh, some things had been changed, to be sure. In place of the matter/anti-matter warhead that normally was located in the bow, a full spectrum sensor platform had been installed, along with other equipment he hadn't been fully knowledgeable on. Cargo bay two had the ability to be converted into any number of different environments, both agreeable to human life and otherwise. Right now it held several different kinds of scientific probes they'd picked up for their last mission. The captain hadn't decided whether they were going to hang on to them or not, so for the moment they stayed right where they'd last been crated.

A sharp jolt brought him back to the present, where the instruments showed the ship on final approach. He nodded with satisfaction as the massive landing legs deployed from the bottom of the ship, touching down in the center of the pad with a solid thump.

Peter felt the engines calm as the load demanded from them eased, then vanished as the ship's weight came fully on the legs. Lights flashed green as all indicators confirmed the legs condition. He tapped the comm switch.

"Legs are locked tight. We're ready to cut over to station power at your command," he reported.

"Make it so, chief. Let's tighten this lady's mouth down on the nipple." Janice's voice definitely had a touch of humor in it, Peter thought. He had to figure out what was going on! "Oh, I hope you got those quarters straightened out like you were supposed to," she continued. "New arrivals waiting us when we touch down."

"Yeah, the quarters are ready," he replied. It had been hard, but he'd felt the cleaning out of their gear had fallen to him. After all, he'd caused the problem in the first place. No matter how the captain had tried to convince him otherwise. He knew, even if they didn't.

"Good. Get on those couplings." The connection clicked closed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Zerk shielded his ears as the Mary Lou slid down from the sky to come to rest in the center of the landing pad so close to him. He shivered as he watched the dark shape grow in size until he could make out the civilian markings on her side. Her coloring was unusual, gloss black with a red strip running horizontally around the ship. It made for an oddly menacing look, leaving him with an uneasy feeling.

Or perhaps it was that salad the human had said was good for his metabolism. What did he know about Ferringi metabolism? Perhaps he was coming down with one of those famous stomach bugs that lays its victims low. He would have to ask his friend...

He stopped short, remembering that his friend was no more. It was still fresh, too fresh. He was glad the captain had asked him to disembark with him to locate some items of import that he'd known Zerk's skill could produce. That was why he was the Mary Lou's quartermaster. He was very good at acquiring things for the captain. And if he was also good at acquiring things that ended up putting a latinum bar or two into his pocket... who's to worry?

He ducked through the archway leading to the tarmac and headed toward the opening gangway, deftly avoiding the cabling trailing behind a couple of dock workers. They finished attaching the mass to the side of the Mary Lou, blinking blue lights settling down to a steady burn as the circuits inside meshed together, tying the ship into the local power and information 'nets. Nearing the gangplank he looked up to see Peter standing at the top of the ramp, looking out and around the docking bay.

There was a lot to see. From his vantage point, about twenty feet in the air, his view upward was blocked by the underbelly of the Mary Lou. That didn't stop him from seeing out across the tarmac. Workers scrambled over ships just touching down, or removing connections just before the ships lifted off again. Others moved crates from here to there, seemingly oblivious to all the other activity going on around them, yet able to keep from slamming together with the dexterity of a dancer.

As much as he enjoyed the show, that's not why he stuck his neck out the door.

"Hey Zerk!" he shouted as the Ferringi neared the top of the ramp. "There was a message waiting in the queue when we linked in about a shipment waiting for us? That your doing? Walters didn't know anything about it."

"Yes, yes, that's mine," Zerk answered. "Things I was asked to get, I got. Did they have a delivery time?" he asked.

"Just a comm ident," he replied, watching the Ferringi's face become more agitated. He knew it set Zerk off if things didn't go his way. It was funny to watch at times.

Zerk couldn't believe the laxness of these humans! Clearly he'd have to attend to it himself, just as he always did. "Please open up access to cargo bay two from outside," he said to Peter as he moved past him toward the comm panel set in the wall. "The items being delivered will fit nicely in there."

Peter nodded. Even though he liked to tease Zerk, he had to admit that the Ferringi was very good at his job. He'd been able to obtain everything he'd been asked to up to this point, and while some of the items had caused him to raise an eyebrow, he didn't see it as his place to say anything about how the goods were gotten. He followed Zerk inside, closing the hatch behind him.

Steam billowed from the open door to the head, the sound of a running shower combining with the steam to give off an aura of luxury not normally found on a starship. Actual showers were few and far between. Most made do with a sonic shower. Which, though it would get you clean, wasn't the most fun activity to be had.

The sounds of the shower abruptly cut off, to be followed shortly by Quade toweling himself off as he walked into his room. He'd taken a shower in the hotel the day before, but figured while they were still docked he'd go ahead and get one more in before they lifted. He rationed himself to one three minute water shower a week while in flight. So when he had the chance to take a long, hot shower, he availed himself of it.

Walking over to one of the storage compartments built into the wall he pulled out a shirt, underpants, and pants, and began to put them on. The mirror on the wall mirrored him as he dressed, showing a well built man in good physical shape. What would have caught anyone's eyes upon seeing it was the scar running from just under his left collarbone to his right hip. From the looks of it the wound was not a recent one. The scar tissue showed every indication of being well healed.

A chime rang through the air. Quade finished pulling on his shirt, then tapped a nearby comm pad. "Quade here."

"Captain, you asked to be informed when all crew were aboard and all cargo secured."

Quade nodded to himself. "Excellent, Janice. Please put us in the departure queue. I'll be on the bridge in a minute." He clicked off the comm, then grabbed his boots, sitting down on the neatly made bed to pull them on. A moment later he was out the door.

Janice flipped a switch on the console in front of her as the comm clicked off. "Norfolk Control, this is the Mary Lou, NCC-376238-cc, requesting entry into the departure queue."

"Roger that, Mary Lou." The voice of Norfolk Control came back almost immediately. "You are now seventh in the queue. Anticipated lift-off time is 1642 hours local."

Janice glanced at the time. 1630. That'd work.

"Acknowledged, Norfolk Control. Seventh in the queue. Lift-off at 1642 hours." She flipped the circuit back to standby, then punched up the command circuit.

"Alright people," she said to the waiting group. "Let's go through the list. Engineering?"

"All systems are operational," Peter replied from his station down in the engine room. "Weapons systems offline. Defensive systems on standby. Environmental systems in the green. Propulsion systems at your command. The Mary Lou's ready for space."

Janice nodded to herself. "Cargo Master?"

"Ship's stores have been replenished," Zerk replied from his small office just outside of cargo bay one. "Cargo secured in bay two. All valuables secured."

Janice grinned, then nodded to the captain as he entered the bridge and settled himself down into his chair.

"You set there, T'Kel?" she asked, turning toward the helm. T'Kel looked back at her. "Yes Ma'am," she answered. "It will take us 2.3 hours on impulse to clear Sol's gravitational influence. We will then jump to warp five on a course for Starbase 120. We should arrive at the starbase 13.7 days later."

Janice nodded to T'Kel, then turned to the captain. "Captain, the Mary Lou is ready for space."

Quade nodded to his first officer, hiding a grin. You can take the officer out of Starfleet, he mused. Taking Starfleet out of the officer, on the other hand...

"Very good, Janice. T'Kel," he said, turning his attention the the young vulcan, "take us out as scheduled."

"Aye, sir. Fourth in line now. Lift in 6.12 minutes."

Quade nodded at T'Kel's statement, then turned his attention to the displays in front of him. Everything looked good. Now all there was to do was to wait.

The wait wasn't a long one. Within moments Janice cocked her head as her earbud picked up a short transmission. "Norfolk Control says we're clear for liftoff at any time, captain."

Quade grinned. "Well, you heard the lady," he said to T'Kel, who was looking at him. With a nod she turned around, punching an activation key on her console. The sound of the engines took on a deeper note as she brought them online.

"All hands, stand by for lift," T'Kel stated as she applied vertical thrust, taking the ship's weight off the landing legs. Peter, watching the stress indicators over at the engineering station, nodded as the pressure eased. As the last of the gauges swung down to zero he punched in the retraction sequence. He was rewarded a moment later with solid thumps as the legs retracted into the underside of the ship.

T'Kel, watching the maneuver on her board, applied thrust, steering the ship on the vector that control had given her, keeping an eye on the sensors, just in case the lane wasn't as clear as control thought it was. The Mary Lou rose quickly through the darkening sky, until the stars came out in the unblinking brightness of space.

"Free of the atmosphere, captain." T'Kel stated.

"Very well. Set course for the Jupiter nexus and engage." Quade replied.

With a graceful arc the Mary Lou slid away from the planet, her nose pointed toward the outer reaches of the solar system. Accelerating, she quickly left Earth behind.

Quade watched Earth vanish in the viewscreen, then switched the view forward, watching Earth's moon sweep away starboard. In moments nothing was showing on the screen except the darkness of space. He watched the unchanging view for a moment as T'Kel settled the ship onto her course. Finally he nodded, then rose.

"I'll be in my office," he said to Janice as he strode off the bridge through the door to the captain's ready room. The familiar surroundings brought a smile to his face as he first went to the replicator to get a cup of coffee, then settled down behind his desk, bringing up the paperwork waiting for him. It seemed every time he turned around there were more documents requiring his thumb print. As he was a thorough man he took the time to read each document before he signed off on it, which usually took him a couple of hours every time he sat down to do it. It had been a few days, so there was quite a lot waiting for him. He dug in, barely registering Janice's voice letting the crew know they were underway again.

Pam unstrapped from her seat in Medical as the all-clear sounded. She'd ridden out of earth's orbit before. It was a common occurrence for students to take a field trip to the colony on the Moon, which she'd eagerly gone on. It had been amazing to travel across the Moon's surface to the Sea of Tranquility, where man had first stepped foot on another celestial body.

That trip was nothing like what she was experiencing now. Then she'd been on a transport that had sat several hundred people. Now she was on a starship, in charge of her own sickbay!

And what a sickbay it was, she thought as she continued what she'd been doing before launch, which was figuring out where everything was. She'd downloaded a copy of the inventory for the department to her padd, then began hunting for the equipment and supplies that were listed there. She was pleased to find out how modern the equipment was. There were even four stasis chambers for use in situations that required more help than she could offer. As she was familiarizing herself with the department, she couldn't help but wonder how a civilian ship came by the things she was finding. There was even one of the newest bio scanners over in one of the drawers. She'd had the luxury of using one in one of her advanced classes. That was only three months ago, and the only reason she'd been able to get her hands on it was because on of the Starfleet recruiters had shown it to her to hopefully help him convince her that Starfleet was for her, as the devices hadn't been released into the civilian population. Yet here was one, clearly in civilian hands.

She figured she shouldn't complain, though. If she was going to be the doctor on board a civilian vessel it was good to know that she would have good equipment to help her along. She'd wondered if she was going to have to buy some equipment on her own. Glancing around at the small but fully stocked sickbay and supporting office and patient areas she was relieved that she wasn't going to have to do that.

She was almost through with her checklist when the chime of an incoming call filled the air. She reached over and tapped open the channel. "Jacob-Smith here."

"Ah, Doctor. Have you gotten all settled in?" The voice of her new boss, Captain Samuels, asked.

"I have, yes," she replied. "I have also familiarized myself with your sickbay. Quite a modern facility you have here."

She heard a chuckle escape him. "No, doctor, it's your domain now, not mine. Though I still have to sign off on the expense chits, so be frugal when you can!"

Be frugal? If he called what he'd done to sickbay frugal, she'd love to see what he called extravagant! Or maybe he was telling her this is all she's going to get? She stopped worrying about it as the captain continued speaking.

"Please be at the main mess hall at 1930 hours. I've decided the best way for all of us to get to know each other is to start out with dinner together. We'll be in warp by then. It should be the perfect opportunity."

"Yes Sir," she replied. "I'll be happy to."

"See you then." The circuit clicked closed. Glancing at the time she saw that it was still a few hours off. Setting a reminder to herself for 1845 hours about the dinner, she delved back into her inventory.

This will be adequate, Sonak thought to himself as he finished unpacking his luggage, then broke the grav-sled down for storage. His new quarters were not big by any means. Right now it was configured for day occupation, so there was a desk with a computer tie-in for his padd on one end, with a comfortable chair in front of it. The other end was set up for the company of two others, where three chairs and a small table waited. The door in the back wall opened up into a small 'fresher, which he'd already broken in, taking advantage of a quick shower before reporting for duty. When he'd come aboard he had been met by the First Officer and shown his quarters. She'd told him to log into the system and check out his orders, then report for dinner at 1930 hours in the main mess hall, then left him to his own devices.

"All hands, stand by for lift." The words cut through his thoughts, sending him down to the center chair, which reconfigured itself into a launch chair. He settled in, long familiar with space flight. Once they got into orbit they'd be fine. Until then, though, in a ship this size, they'd be buffed around a bit.

Not bad, he thought as the all clear came through a few moments later. He rose from the chair and went over to his desk, setting down before it. He brought it online, then spent several minutes setting up the displays the way he liked them. He even chose Vulcan as the base language, just to keep in practice.

Finally he turned to his holding queue, which had several items in it. First was a copy of the binding contract that he'd signed yesterday in his last interview. He spent a moment reviewing it, finding it as he remembered. He filed it over in long term storage, then pulled up the next item. It was a note from the captain, giving him his clearance for the computer systems aboard the Mary Lou. He was to familiarize himself with his duties as best he could before the dinner meeting. Taking a glance at the size of the file, there was a lot to it. Best he get started.

"Jump to warp completed, captain," T'Kel stated as the Mary Lou slid gently to warp five. "All systems fully operational."

"She's running smooth as a dream, captain." Peter's voice rose from his console.

"Glad to hear it, Peter," Quade replied. "Hal, give me a full systems check."

"Working," the voice given the Mary Lou's computer was pleasant male voice. Janice shuddered at her station as she remembered the conversation she'd had with Quade about his naming the computer. When he'd loaner her the vid of an old earth 2D movie and told her to watch it, she'd been curious. But a computer that turned on the humans, killing them in the end? And that was what the humans of that time had thought first contact was going to be like?

"All systems are green," Hal finally replied.

"Excellent," Quade replied, rising from his seat. "You have the bridge, Hal. Call me if you need me." He turned and nodded to the rest of the bridge crew. "Join me for dinner, will you?" he asked, then turned and walked off the bridge.

"Acknowledged, Captain," the computer responded.

Hating to the leave bridge unoccupied Janice waited to be the last to leave. She knew that the dinner meeting wasn't going to keep her from where she wanted to be for too long, and she knew that it was something that needed them all to be there. Didn't mean she had to like it. Especially leaving the computer running things. Not that she didn't believe in what current technology could do. She'd always feel better with a human in the loop. "Keep your eyes open, Hal," she muttered as she left the bridge.

The mess hall was two decks down, and one of the few places on the ship where all the crew could easily occupy without feeling crowded. Janice entered the room, looking around at those already seated. She recognized most of them, including the new security officers. She didn't know the other human female there, so she concluded that must be the new doctor. She looked quite young for her position, though she couldn't imagine Quade screwing up with a new crew member. So far he'd been right on the money.

Seeing that everyone else had, or was in the process of, getting their dinner, she did the same, then took the seat across from the captain. To her left was Peter, who nodded at her from around a bite of the goulash being served. To his left was the doctor, then Zerk. On the other side of the captain was Sonak, Jack, and T'Kel.

She'd been surprised at the small number of people it took to man this ship. After seeing the modifications that had been done to her she had definitely thought them unorthodox, but workable.

Quade noticed the faraway look on his first officer's face as she paused in eating her dinner and grinned to himself. It was time to get the show on the road.

"If I could have a few moments of your time, please," he said. The quiet conversations going on stopped as those at the table turned to give the captain their attention.

"To those of you new to your berth, welcome aboard the Mary Lou. Dr. Jacobs-Smith," he said, nodding toward Pam, "is our new doctor, while Sonak," he motioned toward the young romulan, "is our new security chief. For those of you that don't know each other, this is Peter, our engineer, Zerk, our Quartermaster, T'Kel, our helmsman, and Jack, our Sciences specialist." Each nodded as Quade said their names. "Finally, that's First Officer Walters, across the table from me."

He sat back in his chair, taking a sip of his coffee. He then continued. "As those of you know who have shipped with me before, I like the face-to-face aspect of meetings like this. Yes, I know it isn't always possible to do this, but as often as we can we'll meet like this." he paused to take another sip of his coffee.

"As you'll find out, I'm not big on rank. I do, however, expect the chain of command to be followed. In that regard it's me, then Walters, then Jordan."

As he spoke Quade looked at each of them in turn, lingering on the two newest members of his crew the longest. "We're on our way to Starbase 120 to deliver a load of wine. From there, who knows? I want each of you to prepare a report of the overall state of your departments. Be ready to present it at tomorrow night's dinner."

Here Quade paused to finish off the last of his coffee.

"I operate on the assumption that we have no idea of what we might be flying into. For the most part that's not true," he stated, noticing the doctor's surprised look. "But there has been occasion when that line of thinking has kept us alive. I like to think out of the box, and like to have a crew that does the same thing. I like a crew that works well together." He paused to look over at the two new crew members.

"We're going to be in warp for the next few days. Learn your stations and the operations of the emergency functions in the ship. You never know when that knowledge might save your life."

"Something else to think about," he continued, "is what's out there." He pointed over to the bulkhead. "On the other side of that is the most hostile environment known to man. It has no mercy or compassion, and will kill you as soon as not. Don't ever forget that. Everything you do aboard ship affects us all."

Now that, from the looks on the newbie's faces he'd scared them, it was time to back down a bit. "Of course, it's not death at every corner. The Mary Lou is a taut ship, and Peter has done his utmost to keep her that way. Any problems with equipment let him know. Any problems with anything else, see me or Janice."

"One last thing. Even though Hal can run things just fine, I find a prefer to have a live body on the bridge whenever possible. So Janice will be giving you your schedules for bridge duty. Figure it'll be one night a week." He grinned at the startled expressions on the new crew members' faces. Oh don't worry, I'm not expecting you to handle emergency situations past you getting in touch with me or Janice immediately. In fact, you'll probably find it a good time to study or to work, as you'll be the only one awake, most times."

He stood, grabbing his tray. "Janice, if you would?" he asked, then turned, disposed of his tray, then left the mess hall.

Janice looked around at them. "Ok, I have the assignments for this week. T'Kel..."


	3. Chapter 3

Note from the author: Okay, I know some of you are reading this. Please, if you have a moment, leave me a comment or review. I'd really like to know what you think about the story thus far. Be honest, please.

**Chapter Three**

The Mary Lou flew through the emptiness of warp space, the self-contained bubble of light and air sustaining the lives of those aboard her. One of those lifeforms was sitting at his desk, looking at the report he'd given the captain. He was still shaking his head in amazement at several of the Mary Lou's weapons systems. Talk about cutting edge stuff! Sonak reached out an tapped in a couple of commands, clearing the screen in front of him. In a moment a fresh image appeared, showing the schematics of a pulse phaser array.

He still couldn't believe what he had access to here. Some of the items, such as the pulse phaser array, had been big on the Dominion's list of top priority items to get their hands on. He knew for a fact that several romulan agents had lost their lives trying to steal plans such as these. Good thing the war was over.

Of course, there was always the black market. For an industrious individual such as himself finding a buyer would not be all that difficult. That was also assuming that his current endeavour turned out to be a bust. It was much too early to write off this adventure yet!

Jack lay back on his bunk, trying to sleep. Putting together the report the captain had wanted had been as easy as updating his current situation report, which he updated every day anyway. He'd had a while to get used tothe way Quade ran things, and knew the presenting of reports by each department wouldn't take long.

And it hadn't. It had taken about an hour last night for all the departments to fill everyone else in on their department's status. He was glad to know that the ship was ready for anything, but he didn't dwell on it. Instead he let his thoughts wander to the new doctor. She didn't look to be any older than he was, and she was pretty cute, too. Definitely someone he hoped he could get closer to.

In the meantime he'd taken the opportunity during the layover on Earth to grab the most recent updates to the multitudes of databanks used by the sensor platforms. Now that he had some time he should get started applying the updates.

But not now, he thought sleepily as he turned over on his side. Tomorrow morning was early enough to get started.

"We have reached the coordinates for Starbase 120, captain." T'Kel stated as the coordinates displayed by the nav computer matched the coordinates on the star charts.

"Very good. Take us out of warp, please."

The viewscreen shimmered from the artifically generated view of space in front of the Mary Lou to actual images caught by the sensors as the ship slid out of warp.

The view was spectacular. Starbase 120 lay at the edge of the Rainbow Nebula, and the scitallating patterns of colors that slowly pulsed through the gases and energy pockets that made up the nebula. Quade let himself relax and enjoy the images being displayed in front of him while the rest of the bridge crew bent over their consoles.

Only a moment later Janice spoke up. "Got a feed, captain. Putting it up now." Obediantly a tactical grid pattern overlaid the image on the main screen. Lines intersected at a point in the lower right corner. Labels popping up identified it as Starbase 120. Other lines spread out acorss the screen, some coming to rest on other ships, while another diseccted the failed protostar that orbited over five hundred AUs out from the nebula.

"Course laid in for the starbase, captain." T'Kel announced.

"Engage," Quade responded, feeling the impulse engines come online in response to T'Kel's commands. "Janice, let them know we're here, please."

Janice turned to her console and tied into the communications system. "Starbase 120 Approach Control, this is the Mary Lou, NCC 376238-cc, requesting inbound lane, final destination docking ring 7C." 7C was in the civilian section of the docking bays. His benefactor on this particular trip had their own private docks on the starbase. Which, if you knew how to look at it, said quite a lot about them.

The reply was not long in coming. "Roger that, Mary Lou. Approach Control has you on sensors. Squak ident for verification."

Janice nodded, having expected this. She touched another control, transmitting the Mary Lou's ident. Since they'd been clean for a while she didn't expect any trouble.

Her expectations proved trustworthy as, a moment later, Approach Control signaled her again. "Follow approach pattern delta niner seven. We'll contact you with final approach instructions when you are closer."

"Roger that, Approach Control," she replied. "We will be waiting your call." She shut down the channel, then turned to look at T'Kel with a nod. Calling up the navigational programs for the sector of space, she punched in the pattern they'd been given. A green line extended from their current position, dodged around what looked like an asteroid cloud, then ended up at 120.

"Get us going. Also, I want all departments to tie into our passive scanners. Let's see how much we can learn about this area on passive scans only." Everyone got busier as they worked their consoles, elking as much information as they could from the raw data coming in over the sensors.

"Captain," Peter said from his console, "I have a request from Jack to provide power for those beasties of his."

Quade raised an eyebrow, then tapped the console. "Jack, I understand you want to bring your instruments online? The whole point of this episode is to see how much information we can gather without giving away the fact that we are gathering the data."

"I understand, Captain," Jack responded. "I don't want to power up the entire system, just some of the preprocessing systems. I believe I can use them to help enhance the data streaming and analytical properties of the other systems."

Quade thought a second, then decided to allow it. After all, if he was going to try something new, now would be the best time for it. "Go ahead," he said, nodding to Peter. "All right Jack. Peter will bring it online for you. Let me know how it turns out." He cut the channel, then stood.

"The bridge is yours, Janice. Call me when we've docked." He moved across the bridge to his office, the door sliding closed behind him as he entered, cutting off their view.

Janice rose from her station to sit in the captain's chair. A tap brought up her console, which she split in two. The left side showed the current operational status of the ship, while the other side tied into the navigational systems. Bringing up a third screen on an auxiliary console she configured it to see the results of the ongoing analysis of the passive scans. Within moments she was deep into her work.

She was reading some results that Peter had shot over to her console when the comm chimed at her. "Mary Lou, this is Approach Control. Prepare for computer control for docking maneuvour."

Janice looked up at the main screen, which now showed only a section of the starbase as the ship approached the docking bay from below. For anyone who had seen one of Starfleet's bases, they would have no problem identifying it as one of them. The only difference is its size. The ones put out in the frontiers, like stations like 120, are a good third larger than the core system bases. Starbase 1, circling Earth, was about half the size of the one in front of them.

The dock they were approaching was on the outer skin of the base, which meant that they wouldn't have to worry about becoming trapped inside the base. Not that he could blast his way out, but he'd prefer to not damage someone else's property if he could avoid it. Parking outside was much more preferable to him.

The ship slowed to a crawl as their field of vision kept shrinking, until the only thing they could see in front of them was the "follow me" indicators flashing along the hull, pointing toward the dock. Everyone knew the "follow me" lights were there just to make them feel better. The computers had no need for them.

Finally, with a solid thunk that reveberated throughout the ship, the Mary Lou locked on to the docking bay. Screens sparkled as pinpoint tractor beams latched onto the port side of the Mary Lou and pulled the ship up and through the shields and onto a landing platform. Mary Lou's landing legs extended, settling the ship down in the base's artificially induced gravity.

Flip a swith and there's gravity, mused Quade as he felt the tiny quiver in his gut as the ship's systems handed off the gravity handling to the starbase. Flip a switch, or break a circuit, and poof! Gravity's gone again. Isn't modern life wonderful?

"We've got breathable atmosphere outside, captain." Pam supplied from the Environmental station.

"How nice of them." Quade watched the main viewscreen as bulkheads closed over the shimmering forcefields, sealing his ship inside the dock. Even though he hated the thought of what he'd have to do to get his ship out if needed, he felt better than just having the screens there. At least the bulkheads wouldn't vanish if there were a power failure.

He brought up the "all hands" channel. "Okay people, we're docked. Zerk, unload the cargo. Sonak and Jack, help him. Once you've got the goods unloaded and the delivery is signed over, you've got a forty-eight hour liberty. Take a comm from stores so we can reach you if needed, and stay out of trouble. If any of you end up in the brig I'm not bailing you out."

Clicking off the channel, he turned to look at T'Kel and Pam. "Ladies, you're with me. We have a man to see. You'll get your leave once we're back. Janice, Peter, you have first watch. When I return you too can take some leave." He walked over to one of the many drawers built into the wall and pulled out three communicators. Tossing one each to T'Kel and Pam, he pocketed his. He also pulled out a small flat device that he tucked down the back of his pants, then turned and faced the ladies.

"Ready?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he left the bridge, heading for the open cargo bays. T'Kel and Pam quickly signed out of their consoles then followed at a run, slowing when they finally caught up with the captain. He led them down four decks to the cargo bays, where the doors to cargo bay three gaped wide, the ramp lowered to the deck below. They passed through the bay, heading toward, then down, the open ramp.

Quade stopped as he spotted Zerk above. "Hey Zerk!" he shouted, getting the Ferengi's attention. "I expect ten percent of any additional funds you happen to acquire while you're here," he said with a smile, watching Zerk's face turn to astonishment. He laughed, then walked off the ramp, heading toward the exit.

A few minutes later the corridor that they were walking through opened up into an atrium of sorts. Several stories high to start, the center was occupied by a bank of elevators, curving around in a circle. Quade pulled a padd from his pocket and accessed it, then tipped it back into his pocket, heading purposefully toward the elevators.

"You know, I expected it to be different." They were in the elevator now, rising several hundred floors.

"Expected what to be different?" Quade responded, wishing the ride was over already.

"A starbase," she replied. "I thought it would somehow be different than other structures I've been in. From what I have seen so far I might as well be in my apartment building back home."

"From one point of view, you are correct." The response came not from Quade, but from T'Kel. "Starfleet has standardized all of the interior features on buildings such as administrative buildings, outposts, et cetera, so that building and repair materials can be used almost anywhere. It is logical."

"Well yeah, I guess it's logical," Pam replied. "Sure is boring, though."

Quade grinned. "Wait and see," he said. "Not everywhere is standardized to the point of boring."

The cab started to slow, bringing the conversation to a close. The cab finally stopped completely, doors opening in front of them as it did. Stepping out they found themselves in a whole 'nuther world.

The space before them was enormous. For about fifty yards out from the elevator shafts there were no buildings. Instead, a park filled their senses. Grass covered the floor, with small bushes and rocks spaced throughout, giving a wandering feeling to it. Benches also peppered the paths, quite a number of them currently occupied by the throngs of beings in front of them.

As they made their way toward the shops that were clustered behind the park Quade kept his eyes open. He didn't expect to be jumped on starfleet soil, but it went against his grain to relax in unfamiliar territory.

The three of them didn't even stand out as a group. Their mix of human and vulcan was nothing to some of the mixes he saw here. He even thought for a moment that he'd seen a Horta. Before he could be sure though the group it was with had turned down one of the many corridors and passed out of sight. There were beings everywhere, but the area didn't seem crowded. That was another thing about starbases. They looked big on the outside, but looked even bigger from the inside!

Finally he spotted what he was looking for, a row of taverns and resturants stretching off to one side of the area. "There we go," he said to the ladies, heading toward one of them. "They serve the best Plomeek soup with egg rolls that I've ever tasted."

T'Kel cocked an eyebrow at him at his comment, then raised it further as they stopped under a sign proclaiming the establishment they were entering as T'Chang's. Before she knew what was happening she, Pam, and the captain were being seated in a small booth off in the corner. The room was decorated oddly, she noted. She nodded in satisfaction of the placement and patterns of the eating mats that they now kneeled on. But the room dividers that were spaced around the room with deep red or black backgrounds, stylized dragons twining around each other painted on them... he didn't know what to call those. There were other things that seemed normal to him that were paired with other items that were strange to her.

"This is an odd place," she commented to Quade and Pam as they got themselves comfortable.

"Oh, I think you'll like it," Quade said as he settled down, rubbing his hands together as he did. Menus lit up on the table in front of them. He noticed with interest that the menu in front of T'Kel was in Vulcan, while Pam and his were in English. He quickly went through, punching in his order, then turned to watch them as they made their own choices.

"Just what type of resturant is this?" Pam asked as she took a sniff of the mouth watering smells that followed a waitress in from the kitchen. "It smells delicious."

T'Kel privately agreed. "They are most satisfying," she replied.

Quade grinned, then looked on with anticipation as a waitress arrived with their food. He watched as she put the dishes in front of them, then dug in with gusto as she left.

"Captain, don't get me wrong, my stomach is glad we're eating. I just thought we were meeting someone to pay for our cargo." Pam spoke up for the first time in a while. She was determined not to let the strangness of all this get to her. "So why did we stop?"

"As you noted, Pam, it was time for some sustanance," Quade replied from around a mouthful of egg roll. He chewed and swallowed before continuing. "We're actually a bit early, so I thought we'd eat first. The offices where we'll be meeting Mr. Rathburg are a couple blocks over." He glanced at the time. "We'll have to be about it soon, though, so let's not waste any more time talking." Turning his attention back to his plate, he took his own advice and turned his attention to his plate.

Jack watched with concentration as the remotes slowly lowered the last of the containers from their resting place in the cargo bay to the floor under the Mary Lou. As it neared he and Sonak attached the anti-grav units to it, then flipped it on. The container settled down to within six inches of the floor, then hovered there, cocooned in the fluctuating forces emitted by the unit.

"I have it." Zerk tapped the controls on the remote, which drifted forward and attached itself to the front of the container. Then, with painful slowness, it pulled the container over to align with the other containers that had been removed from the bay. Jack and Sonak followed behind at a safe distance. Once the unit was in place they settled it to the ground, then removed the anti-grav units.

"That does it," Zerk said, wiping his overly large brow. He was glad the captain had assigned these two to help him. That had saved him several slips of latinum. Without them he would have had to hire several dock workers to unload the cargo.

He walked over to Jack and Sonak, who were checking the seals on the crates, making sure they were all still intact. "Everything still sealed?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "All seals are intact."

"Good. Very good. I shall await the captain's word that payment has been received, then sign these over to the delivery service. You two can start your leave now." Zerk wouldn't mind when they left. He found it easier to handle his own business if there was no one else around.

Sonak nodded in acknowledgment, then turned and walked back up the ramp into the ship. Zerk and Jack watched him, then looked at each other.

"What do you think of our new crewmenber, Zerk?" Jack asked, interested in Zerk's opinion of the Vulcan.

"He keeps to himself, from what I've seen. He frequents the exercise room, but in off hours. Quiet." Zerk replied.

Jack looked at him in surprise. Zerk shrugged. "There's not a lot to do once the cargo's settled in," he said. "We were in warp for almost two weeks. What can I say?" He suddenly grinned at Jack. "Wasn't someone I know trying to get to know the new doctor?" he said with a laugh.

"Guilty as charged," Jack replied. "She's human, she's cute, and she appears to be close to my age. Of course I want to get to know her." That hadn't gone as well as he'd liked, though. It seemed that, outside of meals, the doctor either spent all her time in sickbay or in her quarters. He'd tried to draw her out a bit, but didn't have any luck.

"I think I'm going to change, then head ashore for a bit," he said to Zerk as he started up the ramp. "See you later."

The two days passed quickly. As they were only two weeks out from Earth there wasn't a lot to replenish as far as the Mary Lou's stores go. Under standing orders, though, the crew had restocked her until her stores were back at full capacity. Zerk had also found some civilian electronics surplus on the 'net; seemed it was destined to be picked up a couple of months ago, but the freighter never arrived. As electronic surplus wasn't exactly in demand Zerk was able to pick up the entire lot for little more than a song. Granted, it took up all of one of the cargo bays, but since that was what they were there for Quade figured it was okay, especially when Zerk showed him what he projected to make on them.

Quade checked the time. 0800 hours. Time to get this show on the road. Looking around he saw that everyone was at their stations. This time, all the stations were manned with Sonak and Jacobs-Smith at tactical and medical. "Report ship's readiness for space, please." he asked the room in general.

It only took a few minutes for him to receive confirmation that the Mary Lou was indeed ready for space, all hatches secure, propulsion and sensor systems on standby.

"Okay, Janice. Get us clearance to get out of here," Quade replied as he settled back into his chair.

Janice nodded to him, then tapped a control on her console. "Mary Lou to Eagle's Nest Traffic Control. Request a slot in your outgoing traffic, please." Janice had learned about the base's offical nickname and had decided to see if the people on the other end had a sense of humor at... she looked over at her console... 0344 station time. Middle of the night. Oh goody.

"That's a negative on that, Mary Lou," the voice came back momentarily. "All..."

The voice of the controller was suddenly overridden by every alarm on Mary Lou going off at once. The pressure loss siren clamored against the collision alarm against the warp core breach siren against every weapons' system overheating at once against... the list was endless. As was the noise.

Quade's hands shot to his ears as he tried to block out some of the maddening sounds coming from his ship. He leapt up, getting ready to order somebody to do something when the din stopped. Suddenly and completely. He looked around dazedly as the emergency lighting kicked in.

"Just what the hell was that?" he asked no one in particular, settling himself shakily back into his chair, noticing that the other on the bridge were doing the same thing. "Peter, what's the status of the ship?"

"All systems are offline. We've still got a feed coming in from the base, but it's stopping at the junction. It'll take me a couple of minutes to get things back online. And I'll have to do it from down in Engineering," Peter said as he looked over at Quade.

Quade nodded at that. "Get me my power back," he said.

"Will do." Peter disappeared through the hatch.

Quade turned to say something to Janice when suddenly he was in space! Naked stars danced before his eyes as everything vanish around him, leaving him totally alone. Stars shown everywhere, except where the radience of the Rainbow Nebula blazed in the sky. He was at the centere of his own universe. He gasped, then wondered how he could still breathe, when the heavens began to rupture, pouring and swirling and twisting amongst itself, in a sight so spectacular and unexplainable that the human brain cannot handle it, and copes the only way it can.

Quade crumpled to the deck, unconscious before he hit the floor. Because of that he didn't hear the rest of the bridge crew do the same.

Something strange was happening. In a room, buried deep in the bowels of the starbase , an artifact hung suspended from a network of tractor beams. Below it a bank of anti-grav units filled the floor. Instruments had put the weight of the artifact at roughly two million tons, thus the anti-gravs.

Scientists and engineers had been working at the object for the last forty hours. In all that time, with all the instruments at their disposal, they had been able to disertain three facts. One, it measured exactly 15 meters tall by 15 meters wide by 30 meters long, and appeared to be fuzzy. Two, it was damned heavy, and three, it was on the close order of five million years old.

Finally one of the people heading up the project had seen how tired and frustrated their people were getting and chased everyone off. Now the room was locked tight, under a triple layer of security precautions. A patrol even came by every hour to check the integriy of the alarms. They always found the same thing; the artifact hanging motionless in the center of the room, alarms active, no problems.

The click echoed around the room like a low-grav racquetball, bouncing from one part to the next, until finally it died away to nothingness, leaving the room more silent than before.

Moments later a low subsonic hum began to fill the room. The center of the artifact began to faintly glow, then grew brighter as the glow spread to the rest of the artifact, until the entire thing glowed brightly. Suddenly the outher surface liquified, bulging toward the floor. The moment it touched it began to flow outward in all directions toward the walls. It pulsed as it oozed across the floor with a pale purple light, flowing over any obstacles that happened to be in its path.

Upon reaching the walls the it began to flow upward. Behind it the floor glowed purple.

Within seconds the ooze had covered the walls and began covering the ceiling. As the last bit was covered the entire surface pulsed with an energy spike. Data began to flow outward as it found the paths to the starbase's main data streams, and from there to everywhere else on the base. All within a nano-second, faster than any of the defensive programs could detect. By the time they reacted it was all over. The artifact had control. It activated its programming.

A jagged rip in the space-time continum formed above the starbase as energy flowed from the now-transmuted artifact into the very structure of space itself. The base seems to shiver and turn transparent. Then the heavens opened and fell upon the Eagle's Nest. When it flowed away the sky was swept clean, as if after a rain shower. Nothing remained where it had passed.

Quade regained consciousness with a groan. He felt like he'd gone three rounds with a Bantha and had lost. His head pounded with each heartbeat, like the worst drunk he'd ever had. Which was funny, as he didn't remember doing any drinking.

He pulled himself back up toward his chair, then widened his eyes in surprise as he took off for the ceiling. Luckily he had sense to grab the top of his chair as he started to fly by, arresting his movement. With slow movements he settled into it, locking down the restraints. Only then did he look around the bridge. Power was still out. The dim emergency lights showed the others on the bridge floating in various places. Several of them were twitching, which hopefully meant they were waking up.

"Anyone awake?" he asked loudly, wincing at his own voice. It sounded louder than normal, as quiet as the bridge was.

"I think I'm still alive."

Quade looked around, then up above the engineering station, to see Peter looking back at him from the ceiling. "Remember much of your zero-g training, Peter?" he asked.

Peter just looked at him. Then, with a gentle push against the ceiling, he drifted back toward his station.

"Do you think you can get our systems online?" Quade asked. "I'm not sure what happened there, but the starbase's systems must be down too. Otherwise we wouldn't be floating around like this. Hey!" he said, raising his voice again as he saw the others start to come to. "Be careful! You're in zero-g!"

Pam's eyes opened a crack, her head pounding in sympathy with her heartbeat. The light was a low pulsing red, which didn't help her at all. Her eyes tried to focus on something right in front of her face. She looked at it, perplexed. She couldn't figure out what it was, and for some reason it was very important that she did. As she stared at it her head started to clear a little and she realized that she was looking at the leg of a chair. There was something wrong, though, as the chair was on its side.

Her head started to clear a bit more when her stomach flipped over as she finally figured out what else had been bothering her. She felt light, much lighter than she should. She closed her eyes to fight down the bout of sickness that washed over her. That feeling was somehow familiar... she was in free fall!

Suddenly she realized the chair wasn't on its side. Rather, she was hanging in the air sideways to the chair! She reached down with a leg, snagging the chair, then used the leverage it offered to bring herself back to a somewhat vertical position.

"Anyone hurt?" she asked as she looked around the bridge, trying to locate the other crew members. She spotted Quade right away, sitting in his command chair. The Peter, over at the Engineering console. He looked to be doing okay. As she watched his console lit up in emergency mode, upon which he started to work with careful movements.

She continued to look around to spot T'Kel on the other side of Helm, floating near the main viewscreen. Part of her lower arm angled away from the rest at an odd angle; from here she could tell it was broken. Noting that T'Kel was unconscious, she pulled her medkit out of the storage bin of her console, moving with precise movements so as not to dislodge herself from her perch. It had been a while since she'd played around in free fall.

Securing her kit she slowly made her way over to T'Kel. Once there she reached out grabbed her foot, and gently pulled her over to her.

"How is she?" Quade asked as he saw Jack unconscious over by Sciences and began to make his way over to him, pulling himself along the outer edge of the bridge.

Pam didn't answer immediately. First she popped open her med scanner, a civilian version of a tricorder. Running the sensors over T'Kel, she looked at the results. "She's broken her right arm and has sustained a blunt concussion to her head." She prepared a hypo, then spun her on her axis to bring the back of her neck in reach. She prepared a hypo, then pressed it against the side of her neck, where it hissed gently.

"I've got her comfortable for the moment," she said to Quade, who had made his way over to Jack, who had started to regain consciousness before he made it there. "What's up with the systems?" she asked.

"Working on that now," Peter said as he finished bringing the first of the reactors back into the grid. The fusion plants hadn't been shut down, just isolated. He'd had to run a check on the systems before putting power back to them, but it all looked good. He tapped in the final execution string.

The flickering of the main lights coming on brought a smile to his face as the systems started coming online. "Captain, I've left the gravs offline till we can be sure someone's not floating on the ceiling when we bring the gravity back."

"Did someone get the number of that freighter that hit us?" Janice's voice proceeded her as she floated up from the tactical station, bringing her into view of the rest of them.

"You hurt?" Pam asked her as she secured T'Kel at her station.

"Don't think so," she replied.

"How about you, Jack?" Quade asked as he stopped beside him.

"I'm okay. A bit shaken. What the heck happened?" he asked.

"Don't have the faintest clue." Quade admitted as he turned to look at his people. "Let's see if we can find out." He paused as the consoles blinked, then settled down into their startup routines. "Good work, Peter."

"It doesn't appear if any of the systems are damaged, Captain," Peter said. "It looks like they just all shutdown mid-process. I'm bringing the systems online now. Oh, and one thing I have been able to determine," he said, stopping what he was doing to look over at Quade. "The base is down. Totally."

"Well, isn't that special," Quade muttered under his breath. He leaned over and tapped the comm. He heard the sounds of the all-hands circuit come online. "People, it's been a hell of a trip, and we haven't gone anywhere yet. Zerk, Sonak, get secure, then report status. I want to get the gravity back on."

It wasn't long before the two reported in. The familiar feeling of his normal weight returned as the grav units came online. "Okay, Jack, help the doctor get T'Kel to sickbay, then get on your toys and tell me what you can find out." He made his way over to the helm, his eyes taking in the readings. "Janice, get on tactical. I need to know what's going on out there." He began the process of bringing the navigational and propulsion systems online.

"Peter's right," he said aloud a moment later. "The base is completely without power." He noticed that the Mary Lou had begun to float in the bay. Couldn't have that. Not until those doors are open, he thought. He keyed in a sequence of commands. Secondly later there was a sharp jolt, shaking them in their seats, followed by several loud thumps as the mag grapples in the landing gear locked them to the bay's floor.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't realize we were quite that far up. Hope we didn't dent the deck."

Janice, meanwhile, had been bringing up the tactical systems. Finally the systems were up enough to bring the main viewscreen online. A picture of the darkened bay beckoned.

Suddenly the lights set along the bay walls flickered, then steadied as the came back on. Janice's sensors began talking with the automatic sensor relays used to augment a ship's sensors who happened to be inside the starbase. Janice turned her attention to the data that was rapidly flowing across the multitude of screens that populated her console. "Quade..." she said, then stopped. The tremor in her voice was audible.

Quade looked up, startled. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard a tremor like that in Janice's voice. "What his it?"

She looked at him for a second, trying to speak. Then, turning, she keyed in some commands. "Look," she said, pointing to the viewscreen.

Quade looked up at the viewscreen. The bay vanished, to be replaced by a tactical map of the Vaylon system. There were the three planets, the starbase, and the Rainbow Nebula, all spread out before him. He looked at it for a moment, then turned to Janice.

"What is it? I don't see anything wrong here."

"Quade, that's what's in the navcomp as being the Vaylon system. Here's a feed from outside the base now."

Quade watched as the view faded, to be replaced by... less. The starbase was still there, as was the Rainbow Nebula, but the Vaylon system had been reduced to a tiny area in the upper part of the screen. He looked at it for a moment, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

"You sure this is accurate?" he asked, not believing it. "What happened to the system?"

"It appears to have moved away from us to a distance of the order of several light years away," Janice said, looking up from her instruments.

"How is that possible?" Quade asked, looking at Janice, then at Peter. Peter looked as stunned as he felt. "So somehow, either the starbase moved, or the stars and planets moved. I don't know about you," he looked around at them, "but my bet's on the starbase."

"I don't have a clue at the moment, Captain," stated Janice as she continued to analyze the incoming data.

"Captain!" Peter's voice rang across the bridge. "The bay doors are opening!"

"What?" he said, turning to his own instruments. They confirmed what Peter said. The bay doors were indeed opening.

Quade didn't waste a moment. He disengaged the mag clamps after seeing that the starbase's artificial gravity had not been restored yet, then retracted the landing legs. What he was going to do was illegal on so many levels. At this particular time he didn't care. He wanted his ship outside, in open space.

Engaging the station keeping thrusters, he nudged the Mary Lou toward and through the hatch, dropping her into the emptiness of space. He pointed her nose away from the base and engaged the impulse engines, moving smartly away from the starbase. He went out about five thousand klicks, then brought the ship to a halt relative to the starbase. He didn't want to get too far away just yet.

"Okay people, get to work on that data. I want answers. What is going on here?"

"Captain, we have company."

Janice's words drew Quade's attention away from the sensor readings of the Rainbow Nebula. He'd been out here a few times before, though not with the type of equipment he was using now. "Company?"

"Looks like a squadron of fighters from the starbase. I picked them up on sensors a moment ago. They just launched a few minutes ago. They must have picked us up on their scanner. They are falling into position behind us."Janice cocked her head as her earbud buzzed at her. Wait. We're being hailed."

"On screen," Quade replied.

The main screen display dimmed, then brightened to show the face of a young woman enclosed in a flight helmet. Short-cropped reddish hair peeked out from under the close fitting cowl that covered her head. "This is Lieutenant Tara Jameson of the Starbase Eagle's Nest. Identify yourself."

"This is Captain Samuels of the Mary Lou. How can I help you, Lieutenant?" Quade replied, looking at the young woman.

"I have been instructed to ask you to return to the starbase. This area is now under quarantine. All incoming and outgoing flights are canceled till further notice."

Quade cocked his head toward the screen. "And if I refuse?" he asked.

The Lieutenant looked at him levelly. "I really wouldn't recommend that," she said.

"Captain," Sonak said from tactical, "the fighters' targeting systems are locking onto us."

Quade looked at the young woman hanging in his viewscreen. Although she didn't know it the Mary Lou had a good chance of taking them out if it came down to that. Of course, that wasn't was he was out here for, now was it?

"Very well, Lieutenant. We'll return to the starbase. Will you provide escort?" he asked, knowing full well they were going to, whether he wanted them to or not.

"Of course, Captain," Lieutenant Jameson nodded. The viewscreen blinked, returning to the tactical display of the area. The Mary Lou and two of the fighters turned and accelerated toward the starbase, while the rest of the patrol headed out-system.


End file.
